


Dig Them Up (We'll Finish What We Started)

by cjr09



Category: Symphpond
Genre: Disaster Lesbians, F/F, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Not Medically Accurate, anyway a... meet cute? meet ugly its meet ugly story, asaduyhkj this is a monster of a final halloween task, because harvest moon is september and hunters moon is october, because symphs and music and all that jazz, but its mostly monsters so its fine, for the aesthetic, from the depths of my mind, i am also a disaster lesbian so, i highkey died of secondhand embarassment writing this, i just split the extras into the beginning and end notes, i realized researching this that id actually hecked up writing the task itself, its fine tho we just get extra Hunter Lore, its not canon AT ALL, minor blood, not moon accurate either, the "harvest moon... not the game tho" task, the wordcount is 4053, theyre both absolute trainwrecks tho, title is from "flaws" by bastille
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 11:33:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16491779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjr09/pseuds/cjr09
Summary: The harvest moon always brings a few things with it. A pretty view, the coming of fall, and a shambling hoard of zombies that means Tora can’t celebrate any of these things in peace.This year, it brings her a new challenge to overcome; fighting off zombies and flirting with unfairly pretty hu li jing’s caught in the middle of it. It takes talent to do both at once, which Tora absolutely does not have.It’ll be a long night.





	Dig Them Up (We'll Finish What We Started)

**Author's Note:**

> _(Tora asked her mentor once, when she was still a rookie hunter, why it was that the harvest moon called out to the undead._
> 
> _“It’s a time of change,” he’d said, “when that which we’ve sown is ready to be collected. The dead don’t always forget what they knew when they were living. We gather our crops about now, when we’re living, and if there’s one thing the dead know, it’s hunger.”_
> 
> _She’d learned that, when it came to hunting, some questions are better left unasked.)_

 

 Tora's been antsy all day, and it's not until nightfall that she figures out why.

The moon sits high in the sky, burning like an ember fallen from the sun, too-large and bright orange.

Tora groans, deep and heartfelt, closing her eyes for just a moment against the ominous sign. When she opens them again, the moon is still in its place, heedless to her wishes.

_Zombies,_ Tora thinks, rubbing her hands over her eyes, _it's always zombies with this one._

Faust is looking up at the sky, the same trepidation on his face: more concern, less annoyance. Zombies were slow, and usually pretty easy to dispatch, but they were relentless and could come out of anywhere at all, tearing out of the ground with rotted fingers.

It only took one bite to add another to the legion of the undead.

Tora sighs and goes to gather her swords.

 

* * *

 

Tora _hates_ fighting zombies. They’re easy to track, at least, but they move in hordes and they can smell blood like sharks. Kill one, and five more come to investigate; if one finds _fresh_ blood, be it an unlucky animal or an even unluckier symph, it becomes nigh impossible to count heads for the rush of bloodthirsty corpses that would quite literally claw their way out of the ground for a hot meal.

Luckily, Tora lives pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Not very many other ponds in the area; the ones that are around are at least a couple days walk from her own. It means that it’s unlikely there’ll be many zombies crawling out of their holes, but the ones that do are far between, which means she’s got a lot of ground to cover if she wants to hunt them all before they start hunting her.

It is, usually, a dumb idea to split up. Hunters work best in at least pairs, but Tora’s been hunting alone for a long time and with so much ground to cover, their best bet at keeping the emergence contained is by splitting up, so Tora and Faust split up for the hunt.

All things considered, it’s a routine hunt. Zombies are just what they sound like; the walking dead. A good stab to the brain and they’ll fall into a pile of flaky ash-colored skin and rotted bones, easily carried away by the wind.

She’s really, really not expecting to see anything living besides the odd insect, and she’s got her sword buried to the hilt through the back of the head of one zombie when she looks over its shoulder and a streak of pristine white fur catches her attention, bristling behind the form of a much more monstrous monster, the stench of rot and blood strong in the air.

Another symphony. Tora’s already got her sword pulled free and has dashed halfway across the distance between them when the monster throws the white symph into the ground with a _thud_ that carries too loud to be just a minor injury.

It opens its jaws wide, too wide for its decaying body, dead air and slimy blood falling from its cracked teeth as it prepares to lunge, but Tora jumps first.

She puts the edge of her blade in the spaces between its teeth and separates the top jaw from the bottom.

 

* * *

 

"Are you alright?" Tora asks, looking over her shoulder to glance at the victim—Tora’s brain doesn’t really register anything other than _pretty_ before Tora quickly averts her gaze to check their surroundings for more zombies-- and she wipes the edges of her sword on the more solid edges of the monster, the parts that hadn’t already started crumbling to ashes, in an effort to clean some of the infected, rotted blood from its surface. Could never be too careful with those toxins.

"I'm much better now that you're here, Miss Knight," the pretty symph all but purrs, though the effect is somewhat ruined by the mud clinging to her snow-white fur and the blood slowly working its way down her face from a cut on her forehead.

Tora's brain shorts, anyway. She opens her mouth to say something back, probably something flirty, but what ends up coming out is, "Do you have a concussion?"

The white symph flounders, visibly, opening and shutting her mouth a few times. “Maybe?” She answers, apparently confused herself.

Tora sheaths her sword in a hurry- there’s a distant nagging in her mind that sounds an awful lot like her mentor, shouting _you haven’t cleared the area, if there’s one zombie, there’s five,_ but she ignores it in favor of gently running her fingers over the cut on the other symph’s head. Tora hesitates, just slightly, because in the glow of the orange moon her blood looks almost purple instead of the normal red.

Tora pulls back, but only to dig through her bag for bandages. A cut, not a bite, which is all Tora needs to know to keep up with her medical attention, unveiling a half-used wrap of gauze from the recesses of her hunting satchel. She leans up, avoiding the other symph’s sharp, amused gaze, and focuses on stopping the bleeding.

“Mighty forward, aren’t you?” The white symph teases, apparently finding her composure, which is unfair because Tora doesn’t think she’s had even a shred of composure all night, “I don’t let just anyone get this close, you know.”

Tora snorts, quite unattractively, directly into the white symph’s ear. “I’m the symph with the bandages to keep you from bleeding out or getting an infection. Or getting eaten by zombies. I think I get a free pass.”

The white symph laughs, a quick, snorted giggle that sounds like it took her by surprise, head jerking forward and down in an effort to muffle herself. Tora winces in sympathy at the dizzying pain that must have caused; Tora quickly braces her hands on the sides of the other’s head, trying to hold her still.

“Hi there,” the white symph says, looking Tora in the eyes in a way Tora is sure the other symph thinks is flirty but is mostly just concerning with how unfocused and glassy her eyes have gotten, and vaguely ridiculous with the way her fur was flattened down and sticking up around the bandages. “Do you come here often?”

_Gods, this is unreal._ “Yes,” Tora says, faux-seriously, “Symphs who almost got eaten by zombies flirting with me while I try to keep them from passing out is a normal occurrence, sadly.”

The white symph frowns, apparently taking her words to heart. “Am I at least the best at flirting?”

Tora’s a disaster when it comes to conversing but even she knows that breaking into hysterics would be the wrong thing to do in this situation. She holds her breath for a solid three seconds before she answers, voice twisted into a higher pitch than normal, “You’re certainly up there.”

The white symph hums, pleased. “Does that mean you’ll tell me your name, then? Or should I just keep calling you ‘gorgeous’?”

Tora’s face _burns,_ bright as the orange moon that started this mess, and she has to fight the urge to hide in her hands and never come out. She makes a small, high-pitched noise into her palms, counting backwards until she feels like she can control the heat in her face.

“I’m Tora,” she answers finally, voice steady in a way she very much does not feel, “But I’ll keep calling you ‘beautiful’, if you don’t mind.” _Wait,_ Tora thinks, somewhat hysterically, _that wasn’t the plan--_

The white symph does that giggle snort again and this time Tora gives in to her want to hide in her hands and never come out. She’s in the middle of a hunt. The other symph is hurt and probably just out of her mind enough to not remember any of this, blessedly. She doesn’t even _like_ other symphs, much less flirting with them.

“Akali,” the white symph- Akali- says, and Tora nods, absently, more interested in stamping down her own mortification and trying to determine the best way to transport a symph with an apparently more serious concussion than Tora had originally thought.

“Well, Akali,” Tora says, “You should probably lie down, but don’t close your eyes.”

Akali does a movement that Tora thinks is her trying to wiggle her eyebrows, but thanks to the blood and bandages she mostly just succeeds in squinting awkwardly. “For you, always,” Akali says in a way that’s probably supposed to be flirty, but comes out more slurred as the effects of almost being eaten alive and having her head slammed into a rock starts to affect her.

She does, at least, lie down, and Tora takes the moment of brief respite to survey the area; at least she’s not hunting alone, tonight, and Faust will probably be headed her way quickly enough. Provided he’s not also injured, he can probably carry Akali back to the pond to rest and recover for the night while Tora continues the hunt.

When Tora looks back, Akali’s eyes are closed, and her heart jumps into her throat.

“Hey,” Tora whisper-hisses, not wanting to startle Akali or attract any more danger with undue noise, which she realizes in a flash she’d probably already been doing, so distracted with her conversation with Akali. Tora winces, acutely aware of how bad that could have turned out for the both of them, and keeps one hand wrapped around the hilt of her sword as she taps on Akali’s arm, breathing a sigh of relief when her eyes flicker back open.

Akali winces under the harsh light of the orange moon, and Tora flinches in sympathy. “Try not to look directly at any lights,” Tora offers, half in a botched attempt to comfort and half to offer advice, suddenly unsure what to do; the hand that isn’t white-knuckled on her sword opens and closes nervously, an anxious habit she’d never quite managed to train out of herself.

“Why would I look at the moon when I could look at you?” Akali says, and it would probably be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to Tora if Akali didn’t look like she’d pass out at any second and Tora wasn’t halfway to a nervous breakdown because of it.

“I’ll bet you say that to all the hunters,” Tora tries to joke, because even if she feels like her face is about to catch fire if Akali’s flirting then she’s not unconscious which means she’s a lot less close to death, and that’s really all Tora cares about at this point. She steals a glance around the area; no more of the shuffling undead, but they had a habit of quite literally popping up out of nowhere, so Tora’s not going to call them safe just yet.

“Only the pretty ones,” Akali slurs, trying to… flutter her eyes or wink but mostly just succeeding in blinking at Tora slowly, like a lazy cat, a look of sappy adoration written clear on her face.

Tora’s face will never return to the shade it once was, she’s sure of it.

“I’m sure,” Tora says, out of wit or banter or any ideas that weren’t literally tying her tongue in a knot so she can’t trip over it ever again and start flirting with beautiful and injured symphs she finds in the middle of her hunts.

“It’s true!” Akali pouts, seeming genuinely put out as she tries to rise on shaky limbs—Tora hastily pushes her back down, practically vibrating with concern. “You’re the prettiest symph I’ve ever met,” Akali slurs, lying back down under Tora’s hands easily. “You’re so pretty, and I’m a mess. I’m much prettier than this, normally. Better at flirting, too,” she continues, frowning deeply, and Tora hastens to reassure.

“You’re as pretty as you can be, given the circumstances.” _Wait. No._ “If it helps, I’m kinda just a mess in general.” _Stop._ “I’m really just making this up as I go, so you’re doing a lot better than me in the flirting department, at least.” _Don’t just_ tell _her that!_

Tora puts her face in her free hand, again. Her foot’s so far in her mouth that she’s chomping at her knee, and if she keeps this up she’ll need to get a peg leg to walk on like her mentor Gilbert. Maybe then she’d learn how to keep her _stupid_ mouth shut, at least.

Akali doesn’t seem put off, though, smiling a little bit crooked and shaky but genuinely. “You’re doing great,” Akali assures, reaching out to take Tora’s free hand, tugging it from her face and lacing their fingers together clumsily. “That’s much better, though.”

Tora’s going to die. Tora’s going to die here, under the harvest moon, and it won’t even be from the zombies. Akali’s paw fits awkwardly in her own, and it’s clammy from the cold night air and Akali’s injuries, _and_ the position is awkward and vaguely painful to maintain, Tora leaning half over Akali and sitting on her haunches, but it’s warm and this is probably simultaneously the best and worst situation Tora has ever been in.

“Yeah,” Tora croaks in response, and promptly decides that tying her tongue in a knot wouldn’t be enough to stop her from tripping over it, and she should just cut it out as soon as possible to avoid making an even bigger fool of herself.

Akali doesn’t seem to take offense. “You’ve got good bedside manner,” she informs her, quite seriously, and Tora wonders if it’d be so bad for Akali to fall asleep, just for an hour or so, so Tora can attempt to get her pulse under control. She’s vaguely glad that Akali is content to keep up this mostly one-sided conversation, because Tora’s brain has long left the premises. She can’t tug her hand out of Akali’s grip and she’s unwilling to move from her ready position on her sword so she settles for looking around the area wildly, scanning for danger anywhere she can so long as she doesn’t have to look at Akali’s face.

“Thank you?” Tora says, and ups her resolve to cutting out her tongue then never leaving her pond ever again. She can’t face the world after this. She doesn’t deserve to.

“You’re welcome,” Akali says through a yawn, eyes unfocused as her blinks become longer and longer, eyes threatening to stay closed.

_Gods, where is Faust?_   Tora thinks, panicking, wracking her fried brain for things to say to keep the conversation from lulling.

“Do you live nearby, Akali?” Tora asks, adding her name to catch her attention and resolutely ignoring the way her heart stutters in its frenzied beat at the way Akali smiles at it, raising up a bit to smile at her.

“I like the way you say my name,” she says, and Tora doesn’t need to cut out her tongue, she needs some open ground and a shovel to dig with because this is literally going to kill her. She’s already metaphorically digging her own grave and she would much rather be _literally_ doing so.

Akali settles back down, and Tora thanks every god she cares to remember for small mercies. “I live nearby,” Akali says, and Tora perks up. If Akali has a community nearby, then Tora can leave her to their care and then move to the other side of the planet and never have to even have the chance of embarrassing herself like this ever again. “I’m across the river,” she continues, yawning again, and Tora deflates. No way could Akali make that swim in her state, and Tora’s come way to far to let Akali die now.

“This side is nicer, though,” Akali continues, “you’re on it.”

Tora doesn’t want Akali to die, but Akali’ll probably end up killing her if she keeps saying those things and spiking her blood pressure like this. She feels like _she’s_ the one with the concussion, with how much of her blood is hot in her face and pounding in her ears.

“I like this side more with you on it, too,” Tora says, and wonders if she could chew off her own tongue here and now. She’s got her sword, but she needs to keep that ready for if any more monsters attack, which means she can’t use it to save her from herself just yet.

Tora would love a monster to attack, right now, just for a distraction. Just to give her some time to recover from Akali’s very presence.

Akali stares up at her, unfocused eyes locked on her face. “You’re pretty,” she slurs, again, and Tora definitely makes a sound that time, a high-pitched whine whispered low. “You’re like… starlight,” Akali continues, and that much Tora doesn’t doubt. She’s probably glowing with how hard she’s blushing, “you’re so nice and gentle and warm.”

“I’m not all that nice,” Tora hastens to correct, “and I’m definitely not gentle. Monster hunter, remember?”

Akali makes a small, distressed noise in the back of her throat that Tora mirrors, hastily checking the injured symph over for other wounds she hadn’t seen through the mud and her own distraction, anything that could be causing discomfort.

“I remember,” Akali says, pouting, “you won’t like me, then.”

Now it’s Tora’s turn to frown, and she does, finally raising her eyes to Akali’s face, watching her stare right back, purple blood still smeared around the bandages. _Ah._

Tora softens, instantly, in a direct contrast to everything she’d just said. “I like you just fine,” Tora says, and is relatively surprised to find she means it, but Akali doesn’t seem convinced.

“You wouldn’t if you knew,” she insists, and Tora manages to hold her tongue for the first time the entire night, barely keeping herself from blurting out _‘knew what?’_

It’s not her story to tell, and not her secret to share. It’s not her place to ask.

There’s a rustle through the leaves; Tora’s muscles coil until she’s as tense as a snake, ready to strike like a whiplash at whatever was wandering through the woods.

The orange moonlight catches on orange fur, and Tora’s tension leaves her in a rush as relief takes its place.

“Faust!” She calls, mindful of her volume to Akali’s probably still shell-shock sensitive ears. “Got an injured symph over here!”

Faust is a big guy—bigger than most of every symph, a literal giant with paws large enough to wrap around the majority of Tora’s body, equipped with vicious fangs and claws near the length of her swords—he’s someone most people would call monstrous, and she’s never been more relieved to see him.

For such a big guy, he moves quiet, barely stirring the coating of fallen leaves as he bounds towards them; he comes to a halt in front of them, one eyebrow raising with almost comic speed, and Tora remembers all at once that she’s still holding Akali’s hand.

“She’s got a concussion,” Tora says, putting on her confident hunter voice so as not to betray her own embarrassment, “got attacked by zombies, one of them slammed her head into the ground. She’s not really thinking clearly, at the moment.”

“I’m fine,” Akali slurs, clearly not fine. “I’ll get up in a second, just wait.”

They wait. Akali does not get up. Tora’s pretty sure she entirely forgot what she just said, which is a good sign for Tora’s future embarrassment levels and a bad sign for Akali’s health.

“She lives over the river,” Tora says in a rush, “we can’t carry her in this state, we’ll need to bring her back to my pond.”

“Right,” Faust agrees instantly, blessedly keeping his voice down and whatever ideas he’s gotten in his head in his thoughts where they belong. Then he gives a pointed glance at Tora and Akali’s still joined hands, and _right,_ they’re _still holding hands._

Tora tries to tug her hand from Akali’s grip to no avail.

“Akali,” Tora says, very aware of Faust’s gaze, “you’re gonna have to let go of my hand now so we can get you out of here.”

_“No,”_ Akali whines, flailing her other paw out to latch onto Tora’s still trapped hand, “I don’t want to.”

Faust’s other eyebrow climbs to join the other. Tora is _praying_ for zombies, for the promise of the harvest moon, to save her from this with either death, or at least to bite her so she never has to think ever again and would never, _ever,_ remember this.

None come.

Akali doesn’t let go of her hand.

Faust nods, once, decisively. “I think I can fix this,” he says, and Tora hasn’t known Faust that long but she’s known him long enough to not trust that tone.

She watches anxiously as Faust carefully arranges Akali’s prone form into something a bit more stable before settling her into the crook of one of his massive arms, hunched forward on his back legs. Akali’s still got a death grip on her hand, and she has a moment to wonder if Faust’s plan is just to tug until she lets go—which, by the feel of it, would be when one of both of their hands break—but then Faust wraps his other massive paw around her middle and she’s in the air, her only anchor Akali’s paws around her own, before she crashes down on Faust’s arm.

Tora _glares._ Faust rises on his back legs, beginning the slow waddle back to Tora’s pond, smiling smugly. Tora gets the feeling the only reason he didn’t toss her _onto_ Akali is because Akali’s injured, and they don’t know the extent of how badly yet.

But Akali’s smiling too, dopey and more than a little out of it, but Tora finds herself smiling back just as helplessly.

Harvest moon days still _suck_ , but this one is. Not that bad. Overall.

She could probably learn to live with the consequences of this one.

 

**Author's Note:**

> _(“The harvest moon isn’t a good one, then, is it?” A younger Tora had asked, phrased more like a question, and her mentor had huffed something close to a laugh._
> 
> _“It means different things to different people,” he’d said, “to us hunters, it’s a call to arms. To farmers, a call to harvest. To the dead, a call to feast. And a thousand more little things to a thousand more people. It’s a call to action, collectively.”_
> 
> _He’d leaned down, stage-whispered like they’re sharing a secret. “It can mean more than one thing, too. For me, it’s the day I first learned to hunt. It’s the day I lost an old friend of mine and the day I met a few new ones. This year, it’s also Saturday. And next year it’ll mean something different, too.”_
> 
> _Tora had frowned, not really understanding. “It’s still a day of mostly bad things, right? For us hunters?”_
> 
> _Her mentor nodded, slowly, like he was turning over the question in his head. “Nothing’s ever really good or really bad, especially in our line of work. Those zombies probably think they’re doing the right thing, the natural thing, if they can even think at all.”_
> 
> _“Besides,” he’d continued, “we can let the dead have their moon. Because the one that comes after? That’s the hunter’s moon, and that’s where we put them back where they belong.”)_
> 
> * * *
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading! If this is. Kinda disjointed feeling thats because it is, I wrote it in parts ive kinda had to haphazardly splice together like frankensteins monster and bring to life with the force of impending deadlines and my own disaster gay abilities
> 
> the final word count on this is ~4050! I can provide proof, I just wanted to keep the beginning and ending memories seperate to keep up the #aesthetic and set a mood, and AO3 doesn't count the notes for the word count.
> 
> akali and tora are both walking disasters but itll work out for them in the end, i promise!


End file.
